;)
The Commentariat -- October 26, 2016
Afternoon Update:
Ed O'Keefe & Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump made a detour to Washington on Wednesday to officially christen a downtown hotel bearing his name.... Aides insisted it was a non-campaign event, but when Trump took the stage he railed against bloated military hospital construction projects, blasted Obamacare price spikes and congratulated former House Speaker Newt Gingrich for sparring Tuesday night with Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly in a contentious primetime interview. 'That was an amazing interview,' Trump said as he pointed at Gingrich. 'We don't play games, Newt, right? We don't play games.'" -- CW: See part of the "amazing interview" below.
Dave Weigel of the Washington Post: "Jason Chaffetz, the Utah congressman wrapping up his first term atop the powerful House Oversight Committee, un-endorsed Donald Trump weeks ago. That freed up him to prepare for something else: spending years, come January, probing the record of a President Hillary Clinton. 'It's a target-rich environment,' said Chaffetz in a interview in Salt Lake City's suburbs. 'Even before we get to Day One, we've got two years worth of material already lined up. She has four years of history at the State Department, and it ain't good.'... And other Republican leaders say they support Chaffetz's efforts -- raising the specter of more partisan acrimony between them and the White House for the next four years." ...
... Confederates Waste No Time With More Pointless Investigations. Alex Seitz-Wald & Benjy Sarlin of NBC News: "In the last few weeks alone, dozens of House Republicans have demanded that a special prosecutor investigate the Clinton Foundation for possible conflicts of interest. Sen. Ted Cruz has called for a 'serious criminal investigation' into a Democratic operative featured in a sting video by conservative activist James O'Keefe. And Speaker Paul Ryan promised 'aggressive oversight work in the House'... Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz, who would likely serve as the chief antagonist of a second Clinton White House as chair the House Oversight Committee, told Fox News last week the 'quid pro quo' claim alone was worth at least 'four new hearings,'" ...
... Akhilleus: As it has done for the last eight years and for most of the first Clinton presidency, the Confederate Party will spend its time wasting millions of taxpayer dollars investigating investigations that are currently investigating other investigations. "Four new hearings"? Why not make it 44? After holding 125 hearings on the Benghazi bullshit and coming up with zilch, the spoiled brats in the House will give it another try. In other words, if Hillary wins, they'll make sure she spends most of her time bouncing from one shady investigation to another. The Republican Way.
*****
Presidential Race
Anne Gearan of the Washington Post: "Although ... Hillary Clinton holds what appears to be a durable three-point lead in crucial Florida, she warned supporters here Tuesday not to get too comfortable. Campaigning simultaneously with ... Donald Trump in the key battleground state that represents potentially his last, tenuous, chance to rebound and win the election, Clinton cautioned, 'It's going to be a close election. Pay no attention to the polls,' she said at a rally at Broward College's North Campus. 'Don't get complacent.'" -- CW ...
... John McCormick of Bloomberg: "Donald Trump has a slim advantage in Florida as critical independent voters narrowly break his way in the must-win battleground state, a Bloomberg Politics poll shows." CW: The Bloomberg poll is very good for Republicans; it has Marco Rubio up by 10 over Patrick Murphy. See also story linked under Senate Race below.
Donald Trump is attacking everything that has set our country apart for 240 years. After spending his entire campaign attacking one group of Americans after another: Immigrants, African-Americans, Latinos, women, POWs, Muslim and people with disabilities. Now, his final target is democracy itself. -- Hillary Clinton, at a rally in Coconut Creek, Florida, Tuesday
Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Colin L. Powell, the Republican former secretary of state, said on Tuesday that he planned to vote for Hillary Clinton for president as he condemned her rival, Donald J. Trump, at an event on Long Island.... Mr. Powell went on to praise Mrs. Clinton for her skills as a leader and her experience.... The comments were a change from Mr. Powell's tone in hacked emails from his inbox that were made public in September. In the emails, Mr. Powell criticized Mr. Trump but also expressed bitterness at Mrs. Clinton for repeatedly pointing to Mr. Powell's email habits to explain away her own use of a private email server while she ran the State Department." -- CW
Steve Eder of the New York Times: A new WikiLeaks dump of John Podesta's e-mail account shows how the Clinton campaign worked to control the damaging news that Clinton used a private server. Campaign staffers & supporters tried to protect both Clinton & President Obama, who had exchanged e-mails with Clinton that went to her private e-mail server. -- CW
By Driftglass.Steve Holland of Reuters: "... Donald Trump said on Tuesday that Democrat Hillary Clinton's plan for Syria would 'lead to World War Three,' because of the potential for conflict with military forces from nuclear-armed Russia. In an interview focused largely on foreign policy, Trump said defeating Islamic State is a higher priority than persuading Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down, playing down a long-held goal of U.S. policy. Trump questioned how Clinton would negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin after demonizing him; blamed President Barack Obama for a downturn in U.S. relations with the Philippines under its new president, Rodrigo Duterte [a vulgar, mass-murdering strongman]; bemoaned a lack of Republican unity behind his candidacy, and said he would easily win the election if the party leaders would support him." -- CW
Candace Smith of ABC News: "As Donald Trump campaigned in central Florida today, he made his usual appeal to African-Americans, painting a grim and partially inaccurate portrait of black communities. 'African-Americans are living in hell in the inner cities,' he said. 'They are living -- they are living in hell. You walk to the store for a loaf of bread you get shot.' But his comment today struck a particularly tone-deaf chord. Trump was in Sanford, Fla., where teenager Trayvon Martin had been killed four years earlier by a neighborhood watchman while walking home after getting a pack of Skittles." --safari: I particularly appreciate the inclusion of the qualifier "partially". Well played, Ms. Smith, we wouldn't want to mislead our readers.
More Lies. Guess Who? Jeremy Diamond, Julia Manchester & Ashley Killough, of CNN: "Donald Trump claimed Tuesday during an event with staff at his resort here that his employees are having issues with Obamacare -- an account contradicted by his property's general manager -- amid the news that President Barack Obama's signature health care legislation is facing soaring premiums. 'I can say that all of my employees are having a tremendous problem with Obamacare,' Trump said. 'What they're going through with their health care is horrible because of Obamacare, so we'll repeal it and replace it.' ...[BUT]... Clarifying Trump's remarks, the general manager of Trump's property in Doral, David Feder, said "99% of our employees are insured through our hotel." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Akhilleus: I guess Trump Math allows one to describe anything under 1% as 100%. In fact, it's very likely that the remaining 1% don't get any kind of health insurance. They're probably all illegal immigrants. Just Trump's way of Making America Great again. Oh, and I'm guessing Mr. Feder will be looking for a new job by tonight. ...
... Update. Eli Stokols of Politico: "In a telephone interview with Fox News shortly after his Doral event Tuesday morning, Trump seemed to misunderstand how the Affordable Care Act works, telling his interviewers that 'I don't much use Obamacare, I must be honest with you, because it is so bad for the people and they can't afford it.' But employer-provided health care is wholly separate from Obamacare insurance, which is designed to offer health plans to Americans who do not get insurance from their job. Trump said of Obamacare, 'We don't use it. So you know, when they interviewed those people, they're happy with their health coverage.'" CW: That is, even after the Doral manager corrected him about the type of policies the resort's employees have, Trump still had no fucking idea what he was talking about. Also, how hilarious is it that after "testifying" a few minutes earlier to his employees' horrible suffering under ObamaCare, Trump said his employees were "happy with their health coverage," which I guess we can hereinafter describe as TrumpyCare.
... Ian Millhiser "explains" Trump's "position" on affordable health care: "Donald Trump';s employees are having a 'tremendous problem' with health plans they don't actually have. Trump himself doesn't make much use of a health plan that he also doesn't have. And all of this is a 'disaster' for the American people. Confused? Don't worry. So is Mr. Trump.... Addressing [the] challenges [healthcare coverage still has] will require a robust understanding of multiple health care markets, how they interact with a slew of government programs, and how the law can be tweaked without setting off new problems with scary names like an 'adverse selection death spiral.' Meanwhile, Donald Trump does not appear to know the first thing about how Obamacare works." -- CW
... Update. Sean Sullivan, et al., of the Washington Post: "The consequences of halting major fundraisers will compound the challenges facing a candidate and a party already straining to match Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's much larger and better-financed operation. Unlike Clinton, who has an extensive turnout operation of her own, Trump and many other GOP candidates down the ballot are relying heavily on the Republican National Committee to bring voters to the polls." -- CW ...
... All Hat & No Cattle-Ranching. Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "According to the Federal Election Commission filings, Donald Trump's presidential campaign has spent $1.8 million on polling from June 2015 through September of this year (the most recent month for which data are available). The report also lists $3.2 million spent on hats.... Overall, Trump's spent about $15.3 million on collateral -- shirts, hats, signs, etc. -- more than he has spent on field consulting and voter lists and data.... The campaign in a nutshell." -- CW
Politics is a side hobby for Trump, kind of like fishing or model railroading. Hotels, that's serious business, and I hear the hotel is fabulous. Which of his aides would like to take credit for scheduling this trip to D.C.? Is no one able to stand up to this guy? No one at all? -- Curt Anderson, Republican strategist ...
... Maggie Haberman & Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times: "As his poll numbers have declined in the closing weeks of the presidential race, Donald J. Trump has begun to engage in barely veiled promotions of his business brand off the campaign trail, dragging reporters to his marquee properties in between his campaign events. On Tuesday, Mr. Trump added an abrupt appearance at the Trump National Doral, one of his gilded golf courses and resorts in Florida.... On Wednesday..., Mr. Trump planned to attend a ribbon-cutting at his elaborately remade hotel at the Old Post Office on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington. The stops are a remarkable display of personal promotion by a presidential nominee..., who ... is at least partly casting his eye past the 2016 race, and toward bolstering the brand that bears his name." -- CW
Oliver Milman of the Guardian: "Donald Trump's close financial ties to Energy Transfer Partners, operators of the controversial Dakota Access oil pipeline, have been laid bare, with the presidential candidate invested in the company and receiving more than $100,000 in campaign contributions from its chief executive. Trump's financial disclosure forms show the Republican nominee has between $500,000 and $1m invested in Energy Transfer Partners, with a further $500,000 to $1m holding in Phillips 66, which will have a 25% stake in the Dakota Access project once completed.... Kelcy Warren, chief executive of Energy Transfer Partners, has given $103,000 to elect Trump and handed over a further $66,800 to the Republican National Committee.... Trump has signaled his opposition to any restrictions on the development of oil, coal or gas, telling a crowd in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, last week that he would 'lift the Obama-Clinton roadblocks to allow these vital energy infrastructure projects to go ahead'." ...
... CW: Don't worry people; Trump has promised to put all his holdings in a "blind" trust that only his children can tell him about. Also too, climate change is a hoax.
Natalie Schreyer of Mother Jones on that time Donald Trump wrote a blog post supposedly dedicated to a grieving mother -- actor Kelly Preston -- whose teenaged son had died. Trump used the post to recount at length how he had once hit on Preston at a night club.
Deirdra Funcheon of Fusion on that time the Trump team planned to make Donald into a comic-book superhero in a series called "Trump Takeover." Yes, Trump would save the world from, well, everything not-Trump, and yes, he stiffed the concept developer. With illustrations that should frighten you.
Victoria Gotti Weighs in on "King Con". Michael Daly of The Daily Beast: "Donald Trump has had dealings with members or associates of at least three Mafia families, but you can be sure that he never never groped their wives, girlfriends, or daughters. The widow of Gambino family boss John Gotti makes clear that she would not have allowed her own husband even to speak as Trump did on the now infamous Access Hollywood outtake. 'I was married to #1 gangster and would have cut his throat if he ever said such a foul thing to me,' Victoria Gotti said.... She said of Trump, 'what an embarrassment to the country. My mothers side is from Russia, they must be laughing their 'arses' off, at our politics.' Victoria made her view of The Donald even clearer in a post on Facebook, writing: 'Hoping you women out there who have any 'class or dignity' remember what this 'crude obnoxious megalomaniacal mutt' really thinks about women, someone needs to pull him by that useless twinkie he thinks is worth gold..." --safari...
... Michael Gross of The Daily Beast: The morals of Donald J. Trump, as a longtime model lover and then a modeling agency owner, were forged in another era, one in which young girls were used as a sort of currency between men doing business with one another. It's not a time that Trump, who once blew up gossip reporters' phones to dish on his own sexual exploits, real and imagined, is eager to remember now...I spoke in recent days with two Trump pals, both reluctant to talk about the man they once partied hard with who's now the Republican nominee.... But both men also put Donald Trump in the room with cocaine, very young women and underage girls, and rich, old men there to -- pardon my language, but if the Times can say pussy on its front page, I can say this -- fuck them.... Trump told me that consequence-free promiscuity was then his 'second business.... If I hadn't got married, who knows what would have happened? You had drugs, women and booze all over the fuckin' place.'" --safari
How Trump Reacts When Bested by a Woman (Or What to Expect Nov. 9):
On their first ski trip, Donald went down the slope first, then taunted his new girlfriend Ivana to try to match his brilliant downhill run:
So he goes and stops, and he says, 'Come on, baby. Come on, baby.' I went up. I went two flips up in the air, two flips in front of him. I disappeared. Donald was so angry, he took off his skis, his ski boots, and walked up to the restaurant. ... He could not take it. He could not take it. ...
... Michael Barbaro Is Not a Mental Health Professional But He Plays One on the New York Times' Front Page: "The intense ambitions and undisciplined behaviors of Mr. Trump have confounded even those close to him, especially as his presidential campaign comes to a tumultuous end, and he confronts the possibility of the most stinging defeat of his life. But in the more than five hours of conversations -- the last extensive biographical interviews Mr. Trump granted before running for president -- a powerful driving force emerges: his deep-seated fear of public embarrassment. The recordings reveal a man who is fixated on his own celebrity, anxious about losing his status and contemptuous of those who fall from grace. They capture the visceral pleasure he derives from fighting, his willful lack of interest in history, his reluctance to reflect on his life and his belief that most people do not deserve his respect." CW: Okay, so diagnosis of this particular psychopath isn't all that hard.
... Yamiche Alcindor of the New York Times: "With his years of questioning President Obama's birthplace, his insinuation of voting fraud in black neighborhoods and his refusal to absolve the Central Park Five, Mr. Trump has riled up and shocked voters not used to hearing black Americans' sensibilities handled so dismissively on a public stage. But when ... black Americans were interviewed recently about Mr. Trump’s candidacy, shock was rarely a word that came to mind. More often, they said, what they felt was a numbing familiarity: What the rest of America was now being exposed to are words and thoughts they have heard their whole lives." -- CW
Let's Find Out What's on Newt's Mind!
Newt Gingrich (on air, on Megyn Kelly's Fox "News" show): You are fascinated with sex and you don't care about public policy. ...
Megan Kelly: You can take your anger issues and spend some time working on them, Mr. Speaker.
Newt: You too.
Dan Scavino (Trump's social media director), in a tweet: Megyn Kelly made a total fool out of herself tonight- attacking Donald Trump. Watch what happens to her after this election is over.
Senate Race
CW: I'm with Harry. Burgess Everett, et al., of Politico: "Tensions are flaring at the highest rungs of the Democratic Party over its decision to pull out of the Florida Senate race, with Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and Florida donors pressing to go all out to unseat Marco Rubio in the final days of the campaign, but New York Sen. Chuck Schumer and the party's Senate campaign arm arguing it's not feasible because of budget constraints. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee -- under the direction of Schumer and its chairman, Montana Sen. Jon Tester -- has redirected millions of dollars from Florida to North Carolina, Missouri and Indiana. They reason that those states are both much cheaper to advertise in and offer a more promising path to the Senate majority than Florida, where Rubio has long been favored to defeat Democratic Rep. Patrick Murphy. But Reid and other Democrats believe that defeating Rubio would be the ultimate Election Day trophy for Democrats, given his national stature and the reelection threat he could post to a potential President Hillary Clinton in 2020." CW: Chuck Schumer is not the brightest bulb in the chandelier.
Election News
Sari Horwitz of the Washington Post: "Two weeks from Election Day, a number of battleground states are still fighting over voting laws and whether voters have been adequately informed about an array of changing and sometimes complex rules. An unprecedented number of states have put stricter election laws in place since the last presidential race. And in several cases, those laws were overturned by the courts or are still caught up in litigation, creating the potential for widespread confusion. In some states, such as North Carolina, the rules in place during the primary races have changed for the general election. A federal court in Texas has ordered the state to reissue voter education materials that were misleading to residents. And in the Texas county that includes Fort Worth, voting rights advocates pointed to an email from Republican officials warning election workers in 'Democrat-controlled' polling locations 'to make sure OUR VOTER ID LAW IS FOLLOWED.'" -- CW ...
... Michael Wines of the New York Times: "Despite a string of court victories against restrictive voting laws passed by Republican legislatures, even when voting rights groups win in court, they are at risk of losing on the ground. In an election year when turnout could be crucial, a host of factors -- foot-dragging by states, confusion among voters, the inability of judges to completely roll back bias -- are blunting the effect of court rulings against the laws." ...
... Ari Berman of the Nation: After UW-Green Bay students suffered two-hour waits to vote on primary day, "leaders of eight different student groups -- including the Republican, Democratic, and Libertarian parties and the Black Student Union -- asked the city to put an early-voting location on campus to alleviate long lines. But city officials ignored the request and opened only one early-voting site on September 26 for the entire city ... at the clerk's office, a 15-minute drive from campus, which is open only during business hours. City Clerk Kris Teske, an appointee of Republican Mayor Jim Schmitt, a close ally of Governor Scott Walker, said the city didn't have the money, time, or security to open an early-voting location on campus or anywhere else. But privately Teske ... gave a different reason: ... student voting would benefit the Democratic Party." Berman reproduces her letter, which is explicit. CW: Teske has violated her oath of office & should be forcibly separated from her "nonpartisan" job. I doubt that will happen in Scott Walker's corrupt state. ...
Other News & Views
... CW: And all that is because confederates believe that only propertied white men should have the vote. Think I'm exaggerating? Read the particulars in Jeet Heer's piece:
... Jeet Heer of the New Republic: The "Republican electorate is joined by growing ranks of conservative politicians, pundits, and intellectuals [who are] all increasingly willing to say that the existing American political system is hopelessly flawed and needs to be rolled back to the days before blacks and women could vote. On the most obvious level, this can be seen in moves by Republican governors all over America to make voting more difficult, through stringent voting ID laws, new hurdles to registration, and the curtailment of early-voting options. Equally significant has been the gutting of key provisions of the Voting Rights Act by conservative Supreme Court justices in the 2013 Shelby Country v. Holder ruling.... Trump's anti-democratic rhetoric -- and the eagerness of so many good, white patriotic Americans to cheer it and believe it -- is a symptom of the larger trend on the political right toward doubting the legitimacy of the American system." -- CW
Jamelle Blouie of Slate: "This past Saturday, however,SNL struck gold with one of its sharpest political sketches in recent memory...[I]t's easy to read the message as a plea for tolerance and understanding. There's more that unites us than there is that divides us. You can even add a class analysis: Black Americans share more than just common culture with some Trump supporters; they share common interests.... Because of its roots in the South, black culture shares an affinity with the rural white life that Doug represents.... Tucked into this six-minute sketch is a subtle and sophisticated analysis of American politics. It's not that working blacks and working whites are unable to see the things they have in common; it's that the material interests of the former -- freedom from unfair scrutiny, unfair detention, and unjust killings-- are in direct tension with the identity politics of the latter." See video embedded yesterday. --safari
David Cloud of the Los Angeles Times: "President Obama has told the Defense Department to expedite its review of nearly 10,000 California National Guard soldiers who have been ordered to repay enlistment bonuses improperly given a decade ago, but he is not backing growing calls for Congress to waive the debts, the White House said Tuesday." -- CW
... CW: You know you miss him already.
Pity the Poor Weasel. Ed Kilgore of New York: "In all of the speculation about what Americans will wake up to on November 9 (aside from relief the election is over, assuming there are clear winners and losers who concede), there is one prominent politician who will probably suffer from a chronic postelection headache: House Speaker Paul Ryan. There is a small but quite real chance that a Trump-led Republican meltdown will award Democrats control of the House, leaving Ryan with one of America's worst jobs, House Minority Leader...The more likely but equally hellish outcome would be a significantly reduced GOP majority in the House, leaving Ryan at the mercy of surly backbenchers and vengeful Trumpites...In other words, a weakened Ryan might be right back in the same impossible position John Boehner occupied in much of Barack Obama's second term, with the added problem of a GOP divided not just over legislative strategy and tactics, but over the recently concluded presidential election and the path forward for the entire party." --safari ...
... More Evidence of Trumplodytes Cannibalism. Jeremy Peters & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Some of the loudest voices on the right seem poised to channel [their] anger into one of their favorite and most frequent pursuits: eating their own. Some in the deeply factionalized Republican Party, including Mr. Trump and some of his senior aides, are already fanning the flames for a revolt against the House speaker, Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, once Congress reconvenes after the election. Mr. Trump, who has lashed out at the speaker for being critical of him, has privately said that Mr. Ryan should pay a price for his disloyalty, according to two people close to Mr. Trump who insisted on anonymity to describe internal campaign discussions." -- CW ...
... Norm Ornstein in The Atlantic: "[I]t is clear that there is now a yawning gap between the Republican establishment leadership and the party rank-and-file. All of that will make governing by finding the necessary coalitions and compromises much more difficult. But it also suggests that the vote for Speaker will be one of the most fascinating and tumultuous post-election events.... [I]t is a testament to the politics of our times that Paul Ryan, the most conservative Speaker in the history of the country, won't be conservative enough for a solid core of his own party in Congress, and is under siege from his party's presidential nominee and acolytes. And the dynamic in the House will be an early window into the Republican civil war that will follow if Trump loses." --safari
Beyond the Beltway
Ted Sherman & Matt Arco of NJ.com: "In terse and often testy questioning, prosecutors Tuesday challenged Bridget Anne Kelly's explanations for the incriminating emails that pulled her into the 2013 lane closure scandal at the George Washington Bridge. By turns defiant and at times near tears, Kelly insisted that the e-mails and text messages were at times a 'totally poor choice of words,' but were written quickly as banter amid what she thought was a legitimate traffic study at the bridge. She also contradicted the testimony of several prosecution witnesses.... Kelly said she went to [Gov. Chris] Christie a second and third time after the lane closures were put in play and [Fort Lee Mayor Mark] Sokolich suggested in messages to [then-Port Authority deputy director Bill] Baroni and to representatives of her office that he believed he was a victim of retribution. The governor told her to let [Port Authority employee David] Wildstein handle it, she said." -- CW ...
... "An Alternate Universe." Kate Zernike of the New York Times: Kelly "recalled watching Mr. Christie say in two news conferences that he had known nothing about the closings -- much less any intent to punish the mayor. When she tried to remind [Christie's chief-of-staff Kevin] O'Dowd and the governor that they, in fact, knew about the closings beforehand, she testified, they ignored her. Even in January 2014, when a subpoena revealed the incriminating email Ms. Kelly had written before the closings -- 'Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee' -- Mr. Christie and his aides were struggling to get their story straight. They found her a lawyer who assured her that everything was going to be fine and that they would find another job for her; then they fired her. (Ms. Kelly subsequently found another lawyer herself; Mr. Christie recently successfully nominated her original lawyer, Walter F. Timpone, to the state's highest court.)" -- CW
Kirk Johnson of the New York Times: "A federal jury indicated on Tuesday that it had reached a partial verdict in the trial of Ammon and Ryan Bundy and five of their followers, who face felony charges stemming from the armed takeover of a federal wildlife sanctuary in Oregon in January. But two separate notes, sent to the judge from the jury room in Federal District Court [in Portland, Oregon], also suggested that the panel was having trouble reaching consensus on all of the defendants -- apparently agreeing on three of the seven -- and that one juror, a former government employee, may have expressed bias to at least one other juror." -- CW
Megan Cassidy of the Arizona Republic: "Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio was officially charged Tuesday with criminal contempt of court when a federal judge affixed her signature, a formality that throws the lawman's political and personal future into a level of crisis never before seen in his 23 years in office." -- CW
Discrimination Doesn't Pay. Zach Ford of Think Progress: "This week, North Carolina found out it is not getting 730 new jobs and a quarter-billion-dollar impact that it was the top contender for. The reason? Its anti-LGBT law, HB2, which bans trans people from using the bathroom and bars municipalities from protecting LGBT people from discrimination. CoStar Group Inc., a real estate analytics company, had been shopping around cities to build a new research operations headquarters... The Atlanta Business Chronicle heard from sources that Charlotte was the favorite. But the jobs are going to Richmond. According to David Dorsch, CoStar Group's commercial real estate broker, 'The primary reason they chose Richmond over Charlotte was HB2.'"--safari
Way Beyond
Misogyny International. Liz Ford of the Guardian: "Physical, sexual and psychological violence against female MPs is undermining democracy and efforts to end gender inequality, according to a study of parliamentarians around the world. More than 40% of female MPs interviewed by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) said they had received threats of death, rape, beatings or abduction while serving their terms, including threats to kidnap or kill their children. More than a fifth said they had been subjected to one or more acts of sexual violence and almost a third said they'd witnessed an attack on a colleague in parliament. Some 80% of MPs said they had been subjected to psychological violence -- hostile behaviour that causes fear or psychological harm. The survey sample used by the IPU was small -- interviews with 55 female MPs from 39 countries in five regions of the world...." -- CW
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Reader Comments (14)
One of my retired auto worker friends said. " I know Trump is an alimentary cannel with an ass hole on both ends but I am voting for him to send a message.
It is time for a New Deal.
@carlyle: And the message is,
"I hate democratic, constitutional government. I hate Western standards of freedom, like a free press & freedom of worship. Most of all, I hate women and people who can't pass for Aryan. I hate all people who are not just like me, no matter their genealogy. I hate "losers," & ordinary people are all losers. I hate common courtesy & decency. I hate Western standards of ethics and morality. I hate anyone who disagrees with me about anything. I hate honesty. I hate facts. I hate fairness. I hate competence."
I'm sure you can add a few more great ideas your friend's "message" sends. Anyhow, nice to know he values his own petulance above everything & everybody else. After all, there is no principle, no standard of public responsibility, that Trumps his own childish temper tantrums. Since he is so happy to fuck the rest of us, you might suggest that he dedicate his retiring years to a study of how to fuck himself, too. Let us know if he comes up with a method, as I'd like to see his body twisted into the perverted contortions that resemble his brain. And do pass along my wishes to him. I'd hate for him to think that nobody cares.
Marie
"Affordable" Care Act back in politics. So when do you think the day will come when we actually deal with this mess. A friend posted on Facebook a little fact. Cost of hip replacement in US $40, 364 average, Spain $7, 371. Don't be surprised if your insurance company pays for your flight to Madrid, nice hotel etc.
I think I told this story before but it is one of my 'favorite' moments at work. The Dean tells me he just offered a neck surgeon a job with a guaranteed salary of $500,000. Two days later he says he turned it down because his wife was furious over the huge cut in income. The best part, this happened 25 years ago!
ALL RIGHT MARIE––SOCK IT TO HIM! I betcha carlyle's friend would have been reduced to a slobbering mess when you got through with him. Have you ever entertained running for a congressional seat? You'd be one hell of a force to reckon with.
And speaking of strong women: the above Guardian piece presents once again the blatant hatred of female strength––one of the reasons any woman that attempts to "make it" in the world of male superiority better be made of extremely tough stuff and be willing to ride out all the slings and arrows that will come her way. The fact that we may finally get our first female president has not been touted enough––it's a BIG deal and it's about time!
And Donald's treatment of "the fair sex" proves once again
he needs desperately to always be on top.
Jeet Heer's New Republic article (linked above) may be an explanation of Carlyle's friend's thinking.
A non-trivial number of people think that the country is losing it's grip on traditional values, and that a mass of "ignorant" voters are putting into office candidates who will confiscate property (wealth), through social legislation, to distribute it to the undeserving. They fear that The Protestant Ethic is being replaced by mob "theft."
Heer's article is about the (long happening) push from the right to disenfranchise the "ignorant voter", and identifies those pushers as particularly concerned about women's and minorities' lack of support for the traditional rights of property.
Most of the country thought that way until the New Deal. The right to acquire and dispose of property as a personal entitlement was the foundation of the American Dream. Heer notes that the rightist libertarians who want to limit political power to "responsible citizens" are increasingly citing "Lochner", the 1905 Supreme Court decision (repudiated in the New Deal) which enshrined the "right" of property and "freedom of contract" as supreme, at the expense of unions, social justice, and wealth-sharing.
A lot of our thinking changed after the Depression, the New Deal and WW2. The public didn't buy into socialism but surely no longer would accept the maldistribution of wealth that resulted in depression and war. Post WW2 we built a national consensus that valued property and the accumulation of wealth, but that required taxation to provide the social capital necessary for a healthy polity (education, transportation, environmental and industrial regulation, etc.). It worked pretty well, until the people who benefited most (the wealthiest) took political power (Reaganism et al) and worked to reduce the contributions (taxes) of the wealthiest. But it remained necessary to share the benefits of society with the less wealthy -- so, you get deficits.
The "responsible citizens" think that deficits are "bad government" -- so after working to reduce taxes they also want to eliminate government borrowing, because that "borrowing" is really just another form of taxation. We borrow mainly from ourselves, from those of us who hold enough wealth to invest, when U.S. public debt is a "safe harbor" for liquid wealth.
So it all seems to come down to the fact that people who own a lot want more, and to keep what they have. That's probably just human.
But people who have little want to share in the wealth and the promise this country has. And that's human too.
People who have "a lot" are just going to have to come around to the fact that they are going to be required to share more of it, because of the Willy Sutton Rule ("that's where the money is"). History is pretty clear that long-suffering peasants turn into mobs if nothing else works. We are nowhere near that situation, but it would be a massive political error to treat the open franchise as a pseudo-mob (i.e. further restrict voters) and thereby invite real mob rule.
So, our challenge as a society requires us to persuade (educate?) Carlyle's friend that he should not throw his lot in with the neo-Lochnerites, but to support candidates who will work to establish sustainable taxation of wealth necessary to provide the social services needed by the entire population. And among those services should be real education.
And to persuade HRC's administration to demonstrate that they will do that.
BTW, all here, almost all, have noted over the years how ignorant voters can be. We need to see that they are educated and informed, not disenfranchised. But even educated and informed voters will cast stupid votes, from the perception of half the voting public. That's human too.
Apologies that this is disjointed.
Re: Jeet Heer article. There is no such thing as a conservative 'intellectual',
It's clear to me that Gingrich was making a personal statement to Kelly, "you are fascinated with sex." Not "you are obsessed with reporting on sexual allegations." What I heard was an angry, older male who is frustrated with an attractive, assertive woman in her sexual prime, who is clearly not interested in him in a sexual way. I'm not in Kelly's ideological camp, but she is a strong, formidable woman. Neither Newt nor Donald have the skills to render her subservient. They rage with impotence.
Diane,
Both Trump and Gingrich are used to women who submissively bow to them and take great offense if that does not happen. Moreover, they are clearly outraged if any woman (women being, in their view, inconsequential chattel) challenges them. This simply does not happen in the world they inhabit (the world, in their minds, where men are in charge and women are there as eye candy and proof of their masculine charm and dominant status).
Gingrich is cut from the same sociopathic cloth as Trump. To leave your wife, on her death bed, to run off with another woman, a woman you've been cheating with for who knows how long is, to my mind, even worse, in many ways, than Trump's serial groping (although it's more a case of degree than kind--they are both terrible, terrible people, scumbags of the first order). So Newtie's tantrum and his revealing obsession with what he considers Kelly's sexual independence, something assholes like Gingrich and Trump simply cannot abide, say much more about his sense of how the world should operate than her interest, whatever it may be, in sex. It's another example of the Republican Way. And whether Trump is elected or not, Confederates will still hold to their view of women as inferior beings, to be controlled and passed around.
@Diane: It is amazing how transparent these old farts are. Gingrich & Trump have been given all the tools to act appropriately in public, yet they cannot function for long without betraying their ugly little ids. They're so pathetic.
Marie
Informing the voters
https://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/10/26/study-confirms-network-evening-newscasts-have-abandoned-policy-coverage-2016-campaign/214120
There has only been 32 combined minutes devoted to "issues coverage" by ABC, CBS, and NBC nightly news programs in 2016 compared to 220 minutes in 2008 election. It's no wonder why so many people are ignorant.
If I were an establishment Repug and could see beyond the pile of money I'd reap from my next IPO, I'd be looking to forge alliances with the it's-all-about-me Party, the Libertarians, who hate government and its power to tax as much as I do.
Now an outlier in part because of its anything-goes social positions, the Libertarians would be happy to make a home for the wealthy and greedy Repug elite, whose awkward marriage to the social conservative know-nothings they have cozened for decades is in the final stages of a messy and very public divorce.
Of course, some of the more moderate and socially conscious (an oxymoron?) Repug elite will move to the D side, quietly at first, and to the extent that they do, I fear they and their money will retard the progressive movement the D's have had to embrace.
I don't think that movement to the increasingly progressive D's, though, will be that large.
With that elite absent, a new third part will emerge, consisting of the majority of shouting imbeciles we see at Trump rallies, and after this election cycle, with the withdrawal of the Big Money folks that Karl Rove and his ilk have relied on to fund the Repug coalition, the new party (give it a name, Akhilleus) will be left with only the turn-back-the-clock deplorables, who will find themselves in unfamiliar territory:
They no longer will be receiving the handouts from they elite they say they despise, and will have to pay their own way.
I see a lot of Right Wing puzzlement ahead.
@Patrick re. property rights: Just finished a fascinating novelized history (Gold by Blaise Cendrars, 1925) of John (né Johan) August Sutter (né Suter). He amassed the largest land holdings in North America, most of the Sacramento Valley, essentially through theft, abetted by the Mexican governor. Until he was overrun by anarchy, aka the gold rush, after which the land was divided up by the army, rather than returned to the original, native, occupants. So our "rights" descend from theft on a grand scale. I read recently a comment that Microsoft and Apple are the largest fortunes ever acquired legally.
@Patrick: Thank you. The relative value of human life v. property is a fascinating subject. It seems natural to me to value life over property: if in a flood I could save either my neighbor or my stuff, I'd save my neighbor. That natural order, if indeed it is natural, can be unlearned. If I were a sociopath, maybe I'd save my stuff AND her stuff & let her drown.
As a society, we ask some people -- soldiers -- to die for property. We usually try to give that property some other symbolic meaning: "freeedom," national virtue, whatever, but in the end, a soldier is asked to give his life for dirt.
I recall Bob Simon's interviewing an Israeli peasant woman on the West Bank. He asked her why she would want to live there, and she picked up a clod of dirt from the ground they were standing on & said, "Because God gave this to the Jews." Would she kill a Palestinian for that patch of dirt? Yeah.
Carlyle's friend is a nihilist, but as you say, we do have a long history of favoring property values over human life & human dignity. Only white propertied men could vote in the earliest days of the country; most black men and married women were legal chattel; in the West, a cattle rancher would shoot a shepherd; in the South, blacks remained separate & unequal; all over the country -- including in Trump's Queens -- white Americans & institutions would redline blacks & Jews to keep them in ghettos.
The SNL sketch embedded yesterday did a nice job of showing how much carlyle's friend (as portrayed by Tom Hanks) has in common with black women, but the end of a skit was a slap in the kumbaya. The funny thing about it was this: tho the characters' actual lives were strikingly similar, the Hanks character was about to present a radically different perception of black people. It was a brilliant sketch, the more so because the actors played their parts so well.
Marie
I just tried to send an email to Meghan Kelly and couldn't find a way to do it, but here is why I wanted to: Although I never agree with her and her employers on anything, I admired her steely dignity when confronting Trump at that debate long ago, and that piece of excrement Gingrich. She is strong and smart-- I wish she could channel that strength and work with OUR side, because watching a beautiful, poised, grounded, smart woman skewering idiots who are confident in their imagined prowess is empowering. She is a dragonslayer, for sure, and it's sad that she works for an evil outfit. I was expecting both those guys to just pssssst off into deflated impotence, but of course they both became hysterically indignant. How dare she... And I wanted to applaud Meghan Kelly for her resolve-- not her politics.